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Topic: The Prison Genre Cliche Thread (Read 248 times)

It's high time that this thread get made given that I love the Prison genre. Anyway, post what you think are common elements of the genre here. As always, color code your scenes for easier reading. Thanks. Getting it started with....

Eat and Greet - It seems more often than not that the Fresh Fish or Newbie meets the crew that he will ally himself with stars in the cafeteria. Usually the hero is lost and scared and is eating alone when he is approached by the guys that will benefit himself in the long run. From Robert Redford in The Last Castle to Tim Robbins in The Shawshawnk Redemption, the bond starts over breaking bread with the fellow inmates. A lot of Eat and Greets in the cafeteria can also be found in Oz as well.

Kill The Nice Guy - This prisoner is usually the one guy that EVERYONE in the yard likes, but is looked on as a serious threat by the Warden. Killing off this character is actually the Big, Pivotal moment in the story that spurs the Main Character to finally take matters into his own hands and stick it to the warden. In The Last Castle, what prompts Eugene Irwin to finally take the Warden down was whenAguilar was shot and killed. In The Shawshank Redemption, what propels Andy Dufresne to finally escape prison and taking down the Warden is when Warden Samuel Norton kills Tommy Williams, Andy's one shot at getting a retrial.

Anyway the exaggerated or amplified sound is all over this movie. It exists more in a Action Type movie. A simple passing of a beam of light across the camera will have sound, a low rumble or pitch. The other classis is a knife or sword. Usually pulling it out of sheath will produce the metallic schwing sound. Sometimes it's the simple turning the sword (with a glint of light) or whipping it through the air to get that metallic sound

While I'm not really into these movies, don't the prisons tend to be old-school and grimy? I've seen Lockdown or whatever that series was called and the prisons now actually kind of look like schools, lots of light, bright walls, everything's meant to assault the senses in a sort of way so that anything out of the ordinary can be easily noticed. But that looks kinda crummy on film so they take a page from the past.

Oh, and this is a problem I've been mulling on for WAY too long, if you have a movie in prison everyone's wearing the same thing and that's pretty bloody boring, so your main cast needs variations on the outfits, and there's only so many of those you can do.

Oh, and this is a problem I've been mulling on for WAY too long, if you have a movie in prison everyone's wearing the same thing and that's pretty bloody boring, so your main cast needs variations on the outfits, and there's only so many of those you can do.

Aesthetically, you are correct in that the same garb gets boring, but in practicality, no prison in their right mind would have multi-colored or variations of uniforms. I'm sure you already know this, but for the sake of those that don't know, they keep all prisoners in bright colors like Orange and Yellow so that they are easier to spot in crowds should they make it that far in an escape attempt.

The Assh*le Guard - Pick any movie or TV show that takes place in Prison and you will find that one Guard that is borderline criminal. Actually, he is a criminal, as he takes pleasure in assaulting and sometimes killing prisoners for his own amusement. Clancy Brown is a prime example of playing the AHG in The Shawshank Redemption.

The Old Timer - I can't believe I forgot about this one. Usually there is that Old Guy that has served 40-50 years of a life sentence that is looked on as the 'Wise Old Man' of the yard. Soft-spoken and deemed to be a non threat to everyone. James Whitmore and Muse Watson played similar types of characters in Shawshank and Prison Break respectively.

I've actually been itching to revisit Chained Heat again. It's been on my mind for the past few weeks. Why? I have no idea. Just popped into my head out of nowhere. Once I do, I will post any and all cliches that exist within the movie.

Really, the only thing I remember from any of the women in prison flicks is the general cheapness, the insistence on catfights, the nudity-heavy shower sequences, and how all these movies seemed to be taking place in abandoned, century old estates in other countries. They really all felt like dirty locations the production just found (which, let's be honest, is what most movie locations ARE). It never really felt like a real jail to me, you know?

There's never a women prison flick taking place in a high tech facility or anything like that... I remember that boot-centric oil rig prison from Face-Off, the high tech one from that recent Swarzenegger/Stallone movie (which I didn't see) and Lockout... and those are cool, the production designer in me likes those, but those are all kind of guy centric. It seems to me like beautiful women + glass and steel would be an obvious go-to.

These movies I believe reflected some current international affairs, yet they kept the political angle generic as not to raise suspicion with those whose country they were filming this in... Philippines.